Amazing Secret Nature of a Meadow - Full Documentary

I've been to many wild places in the world with my camera but most of all I love to film the countryside close to my home like most of Britain this land was once dominated by trees plants on the forest floor could really only flourish in a sunny Glade the space opened up by the dash of an ancient tree we exploited these natural clearings for Timber and crops expanding them first with hand axes and then whole scale with machines and chemicals the wildlife that initially flourished in a more open environment was mostly pushed out but in a few places too wet or too steep to plow I can still discover plants and animals and have survived or have adapted to the modern world the field or Meadow is such an ordinary part of the countryside that easy to overlook yet I'm increasingly drawn into them some contain webs of life as intriguing as any found in a tropical rainforest even though they're farmed I think they can change our idea of what wildness is this is the story I've encounter surprising spaces near my home in early March this looks much like a neglected lawn in fact it's a matter charged for life waiting for the spark of warmth and extra light that will set everything off this one's already of interest to clever Corvettes this Rook is looking for anything that will help ready itself for the breeding season their early Masters so it needs to get on they're such intelligent animals I love seeing what they're up to carrion crow has found a colony of caterpillars that overwintered deep in the grass where it's warmest one two three but it's not finished yet fool four coverts have large brains relative to body size they have a genius way of sensing an opportunity Jack doors can cause adding in on the crows Act they're not having much success they seem to spend a lot of time in meetings everyone's getting ready to go I'm excited when I find a roe deer buck his new antlers still sheathed in a velvety skin rhodia arrived in Britain at the end of the last ice age because they're small and don't live in large herds they've existed a little bit under the radar I like them because of that they've worked out how to thrive in the open Landscapes we've created since we removed their main Predators they mostly have only each other to worry about young Bachelor males hang out and show off to each other while they're still in velvet their antlers are very sensitive so they tend not to make contact the older bucks shed their velvet a little sooner the current King of the meadow is already revealing the hard bone under the soft clothing the peeling skin appears to be as itchy as it looks this slightly younger bark is checking everyone out foreign grows thicker with muscle it's a useful indicator of age and seniority arguments mostly will be settled now months before the does come into season in July foreign needs to display to the does but also keep an eye out for rivals foreign [Music] s on his nose and antlers the king reanites the grasses and saplings around the field with his musty scent foreign spring as a sudden burst but watching the fields and meadows around me I'm aware how much has been going on Backstage in winter animals need to be ready for spring this pixel made it in January now heavily pregnant she makes her way back to her Earth after a night's hunting almost certainly she paid a visit to this rabbit Warren but now that the coast is clear doe rabbits can collect bedding for their nests [Music] we joke about breeding rabbits but in fact their friends at mating activity is far less common than when I was growing up first deep decline is partly due to disease but maybe centuries after they were introduced in bread for human food rabbits have found a more balanced Niche within the British Countryside the changing fortunes of rabbits and deer are just the natural ebbing and flowing of these open landscapes grazers wild and domesticated have a huge impact on the mix of grasses and flowers within a meadow sunflowers only Thrive where the grass is kept cropped so they can get a head start like cow's lips in April many flowers proliferated as we opened up the Woodland but when we also rid animals with a far lighter touch not so long ago snakes had frotilleries were so abundant they were picked commercially to sell in flower markets now they're found only where grazing is carefully managed unnaturally High numbers of deer take their toll on rare plants too it's early May but a rather wet cold one the dominant Roebuck spreads scent from glands in his Hooves onto the ground to remind Rivals of his potency he adds a dash of urine to spice up the mix short russet summer coat is beginning to show but it's too cold to lose the thicker gray winter one the vegetation takes a bit of a pounding Eden rubs the glands on his face into the grass I wish I could read this smell map in the way the deer do he's aware of me but he's far more concerned about rival bucks I don't think I could get quite this close without disturbing him at any other time of the year I'm so close in fact that I get to see just how tough deer are on young trees who knows whether this Thorn sapling Will Survive such repeated frame deer play their part in stopping trees from greedily closing back over the meadows and Fields foreign close by forever weighing up their chances calculating the risks if they do engage they will spend a lot time iron each other up first a signal in a language unfamiliar to us so it's not clear just how close they come to all-out confrontation [Music] there are apparently nonchalant grazing seems like a bluff better leave it like that for now [Music] [Music] the buck who was marking the sapling so close to me earlier is back foreign he starts his challenge with exaggerated sideways head popping and then with high bounding is held back it takes just a moment for the tables to be turned he's seen off the Skirmish ends abruptly at a previously negotiated invisible boundary wall [Music] I saw very few high-speed chases diligent and regular scent marking uses up far less energy and mostly does the job all right [Music] if there's one flower that defines a meadow in May it's the buttercup these spaces are drenched in light and buttercups are quickly Head and Shoulders over other plants this dough eats buttercup flowers at an astonishing rate of almost 2 000 an hour she's very close to giving birth and this must be fantastic nutrition for a developing form it's odd though because buttercups are poisonous to cows and other domestic livestock they leave them well alone she can't get enough when I find her again she's noticeably thinner she must have given birth in the night Rodeo usually have two Thorns but for the first few days of their lives they live apart from her curled up asleep and hidden from sight getting a glimpse of her is hard enough she's extra wary now to catch just a distant side of her with one of the Thorns takes nearly a week of constant vigilance and it takes another long day before I get the close-ups I want I love the way the phone looks to its mother perhaps for guidance or reassurance but certainly picking up the cues it will need to survive in the world beyond the long grass while mum's here it's safe to stretch its legs foreign the phone seems to know when it's time to sneak away and hide again on its own one evening as I'm watching the Buttercup field the whole family comes together I'm amazed how skillfully roe deer have learned to navigate around us mostly we never know they're even in our Meadows the days are lengthening and where we create Stark boundaries between woods and Meadows we've made life difficult for some animals Badgers like Open Spaces to feed but until it's truly dark they hover close to Woodland cover which is why I rarely see them this family is particularly nervous they live near a busy footpath and have had to Tamp them out early before it's dark with a few peanuts foreign [Music] must be about six weeks old like Road here Badgers moved into Britain at the end Ice Age and have proved to be one of the most resilient of mammals they remind me a little of grizzly bears they will eat anything earthworms are our easiest meal hundreds in a night but during dry weather they'll have to dig up rabbit nests take on hedgehogs or pick off bird nests they like blackberries and wasps nests too [Music] they arouse mixed feelings Among Us which seems to be a pattern for animals that are opportunistic unfussy eaters yeah that's exactly what's allowed our prolific spread across the planet [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] badges have certainly adapted well to the open Landscapes we created and however we maintain them living alongside us if not with us they get my scent and that's it they're gone filming so often ends with a change in the Wind for me a summer is never complete without a close encounter with a barn owl barn owls are in their element over Open Fields where they listen for field voles I feel great Affinity with a bird that specializes in being so intensely quiet Sometimes They Come very close but I've never heard so much as a whisper from their wing Beats foreign have to recolonize the meadow after every haircut so even better places for barn owls as where the grass isn't cut or grazed at all for several years climbing through the grasses are wild plants we once encouraged virtues are natural fertilizers of the soil but I'm discovering they're also part of an extraordinary web of meadowlife I've just had to look much closer than I have before special nectaries on the stand provide ants with an energy drink pretty much all to themselves in return the ants Patrol the plant guarding it against hungry caterpillars or others that might eat it [Music] but that's clearly not the end of the story Church aphids are feeding away with impunity they've outwitted the plant's defenses they suck the vetch's sap and use it to make themselves poisonous to predators what makes them even more Invincible is the rate at which they clone themselves it takes just 10 days to reach adulthood shedding their skins as they grow there are more than 500 different species of aphid in the UK and many are host specific each living off one plant species and no other these on an oxide Daisy produce globules of sweet liquid which ants find irresistible honeydew is really a waste product sugars and liquid produced as the aphid tries to absorb nitrogen from the plant but to the ants it's a real sweet man a deal in which they then protect the aphids from Attack other insects benefit too mopping up honeydew that's left behind as much as gardeners loathed them aphids provide a central service to British wildlife they feed or provision countless other creatures in our fields and meadows before a ladybird reaches adulthood it looks like this and at this larval Stage IT ants for aphids too our grasslands may look ordinary compared to the plane's steps or Savannah but now that I'm getting my eye in and now that I'm thinking about them on a much smaller scale they are rich and diverse in their own special way tiny herbivores such as aphids are as important to our fields and meadows as the huge herds of wildebeest and zebra are to the Serengeti without aphids animals from ladybirds to malachite beetles that help pollinate wildflowers and crop plants alike would not thrive living as they do out of plain sight they've suffered from over grazing and from the overuse of chemicals but where we've been less heavy-handed Small Miracles of nature still exist take the red-tailed Mason bee one of our 225 species or so of solitary B now in may it has an egg to lay [Music] first it searches for just the right size of shell [Music] once the basic architecture has been approved the hard work begins it spreads a mastic of chewed up Leaf onto the outer surface no one knows exactly why it could be camouflage or perhaps a means of regulating the temperature of the Shell's interior then the bee collects pollen and nectar which it begins packing into the spiral center of the shell this will be the Larder of food on which its grub Will Survive once it's laid its single egg it fills the rest of the chamber with small stones once everything is in place and sealed up it makes sure the entrance is facing downwards and a quick wash and brush up before the final job that needs to be done [Music] [Music] the bee finds small lengths of dried grass and light sticks which it carries like a tiny witch on a broomstick back to the Shell thank you [Music] foreign [Music] song makes me consider the degree to which bees think [Music] um I see also why it's sometimes called the thatching bee bees especially the grubs are very temperature sensitive so as well as concealing a precious investment perhaps she's also insulating it from the ups and downs of the weather [Music] normally this process can take just a day or two but cold weather slowed her right down I watched her labor on and off on her grubs shelter for nearly three weeks foreign I make a mental note to tread more carefully across Meadows in future another of our many solitary bees the ashy mining bee lays its eggs in soil it's a strong Digger and together with its dashing black and white stripes reminds me of a badger but it's not just under surveillance by me a parasitic fly has spotted it and is waiting for just the right moment to lay its own eggs amongst the bees brood it sometimes amazes me how tuned in other animals are to each other the fly locates the nest and begins to lay coincidentally the bee returns but makes no effort to protect its nest what's done is done it seems [Music] an uncut Meadow in June is perhaps one of the most unsung wonders of the British Countryside I can spend hours just losing myself in the smells sounds textures it's like a forest in miniature the common names of flowering plants ladies bed straw self heal milkworld Dyer's greenweed reveal the wide uses we once had for them but the plants can't survive alone even though it's right on our doorstep we still don't fully understand the micro connections between the plants and animals in our Meadows five acres of grassland may contain a ton of invertebrates the fleshy stones of herbs and flowering plants support millions of herbivores alone I notice that the shape and structure of flower stalks and grass stands is as supportive to insects as twigs and branches are to birds and mammals Predators lie and wait for prey or Ambush them from the arm the more I look the more I see I learn that invertebrates like this frog hopper hiding in bubbles blown for itself might use different species of grasses or flowering plants at different stages in their life cycle through June as the grasses grow even taller the meadow develops a distinct and cooler understory and a sunlit canopy of grass heads and flowers where pollen and nectar is plentiful there are hundreds of different insects that help to spread the pollen around bees even in their great variety can't take all the glory for the Regeneration of meadow flowers or our crops [Music] the ordinary is suddenly looking extraordinary I'm so engrossed in this miniature world but what comes next is your [Applause] [Applause] hay making puts an end to macro filming in this matter I shouldn't really be really be surprised we've always cut Meadows and of course this is what helps keep the woods pinned back and creates light open spaces for a greater diversity of Wildlife but when and how frequently we choose to mow a meadow has knock-on effects for everything from castrols all the way down the food chain I'm interested to find out what these are [Music] even now animals sneak in and make the most of the Fallout carrion crows have a particularly good nose for an opportunity foreign has found a pheasant slayed by the mower thank you [Music] once they get to the meaty bits they fill their beaks and we'll find a place to cash it for later [Music] foreign every bit of our Countryside has meaning to animals a massive moan Meadow can be someone's food storage area it makes me think we have a tendency to tidy up too much I discover that first thing right after a Meadow is cut I have a good chance of seeing foxes they know that in the few days between cutting and bailing there are golden opportunities this one's too distant to film yet I've got one chance to move my camera to where I hope it'll come towards me foreign [Music] foreign just doubled four sharp eyes against two foreign the next morning the female is back foreign foreign she's lining herself up for something the light is good she's just the right distance from my lungs and about to catch a meal it doesn't get much better not this time the more successful typically or I can't see them so well the dog fox has retrieved dead prey he cashed in the night he comes so close so quickly I can barely Focus when he stops I get an unusual view of a short-tailed theme song and those extraordinary cat-like eyes his sixth sense tells him something's not right that's it I won't see him again today green woodpeckers are great fans of close cropped grassland this pair has discovered a meadow ants Mast that was disturbed by the tractors ants of our thing [Laughter] they're too young are learning how to make the most of their sticky and divining tongues the tongue is so long three times the length of their beak that it needs to be coiled around inside their skull males have two small red bib patches already visible on this youngster whereas the adult female has dark ones some fields are left uncut and the tall grasses provide good cover for Road here but that also makes filming them particularly difficult it's late July the start of their rut and I'm hiding in the Gap in a Hedgerow watching a dough I've been tracking for a few days suddenly a Wandering Buck emerges onto the tract behind me [Music] he's cautious but drawn by the scent of the dough he tentatively enters the field she's in on my right the resident male trouble and shoes him out he was guarding the doe waiting for the fleeting few hours only that she'll be in season wow seeing rhodium mate is a rare sight it's something I've wanted to film for a very long time I'm lucky they happen to come this close but then the buck spots me he's pumped up and I'm suddenly aware he could decide to use those antlers on me when the dough relaxes is reassured too that I'm not another buck it's back to business Meadows that are left uncut for longer don't just provide good love nests for Road here little spaces where late flowering grasses and plants can flourish species that would otherwise get wiped out during earlier haymaking [Music] back end of summer flowers such as nap weed are vital refueling stations for so many different species the longer Meadows are left for more likely invertebrates including important pollinators can complete their life cycles bits that aren't cut at all shout to life right through the winter it seems that a patchwork approach Meadows cut to different time scales is the ideal way to improve diversity where it gets a chance that weed grows abundantly and flowers for a long time so it's a great friend to insect pollinators my veg patch might be weed free but I encourage sour thistles in other parts of my garden goldfinches love their seeds so the bullfinches we have a tricky relationship with so-called weeds few people sing the Praises of stinging nettles yet they're an essential food plant for several butterfly species at the egg and larval stages these are the caterpillars of the small tortoise shell butterfly [Music] once they've eaten their fill caterpillars begin finding their way to the top of the nettle plant for the next stage of their life cycle at the top of the plant they live together in a protective web of silk until they reach their third install [Music] after molting four times and for their final insta they leave the group and find a spot on their own each one tailors a silk tent by drawing a metal Leaf around itself in here it will pupate and emerge two to four weeks later as a small tortoise shell butterfly a batch of nettles is an amazing nursery for some of our most beautiful butterflies [Music] another lover of metal patches is the Corn Creek the males arrive back from Africa ahead of the females and very early in the spring when metals can be the only cover around conquakes are notoriously difficult to see stands of flag irises which like Nettles shoot up quite early or another good place to look they're pretty much extinct in Mainland Britain now so I've come to the islands of the Scottish West Coast where in a few places their rasping cools still cut through the stiff breezes they like Farmland that's not too tidy and where Fields aren't cut early for crops like silage concrete should be friends with any farmer because at least through April while I'm here their diet consists almost entirely of slugs of course they've not come all the way from Africa just to eat slimy slugs these early birds are laying claim to the juiciest areas of Farmland so they'll have something to attract the females when they eventually fly in two males have set up territories on either side of a farm truck a kind of no man's land they may not like to be seen but they're certainly not afraid to be heard who knew that slugs could give such good voice foreign maybe the females will be able to hear just how rich their diet has been to help them choose a good place to most they'll sit tight for now concentrating on slugs and on building up their energy reserves when the females arrive they'll be taunting each other all night long as well although I wouldn't describe their voice as pretty their plumage is a revelation it's sad that there's only one corner of Britain now where this lovely bird can just about hang on remote parts of Scotland are now a refuge to many rare species that struggle elsewhere along parts of the Atlantic Shore lies a unique system of cultivation the Makkah ground nesting Birds such as lap Wings still Thrive here where insect prey and wild seeds haven't been wiped out by chemicals industrial scale monocarchers or over grazing [Music] [Music] the Maca has traditionally been farmed in a more gentle Wildlife tolerant way where slow farming persists and Meadows are still flower Rich into August there's still room for the great yellow bumblebee [Music] it's one of Britain's now very rare bumblebees [Music] perhaps I was lucky but once I found this Lush habitat I had no trouble filming them they don't ask for much [Music] [Music] this could be a New Age of Enlightenment towards our fellow land users we know that given half a chance nature seizes the slightest opportunity back home in late summer I'm watching for deer again in a damp Riverside Meadow that has only just been cut for hay the rigid division between the Wild and cultivated really only exists in our minds maybe we should blur the boundaries more and find ways to reconnect with Native wildlife in our most ordinary of farmed spaces Meadows are a good place to start after Decades of intensive farming some are being managed in less heavy-handed ways traditional grazing leaves cattle outside well into the Autumn right up until the grass stopped growing the following spring flowering plants will compete off a mall-level playing field a field rich in flowers also benefits the cow's Health too the British Countryside has never been fixed down the centuries field boundaries have been constantly realigned times are changing yet again can we make space around crops and offer more of a Lifeline to our resident animals through autumn and winter many of our birds are more common in urban Gardens than they are in the countryside now that we better understand the long food chain on which say a barn owl depends we can manage our landscape in a more thoughtful enlightened way so there's enough good food for us and for them are these shifting attitudes the reason why one evening in early March a rare short-eared owl patrolled a field near my house I've never seen one here in more than 20 years the distribution in Britain has gradually been shifting northwards possibly due to climate change [Music] it favors hunting the same field I filmed the bar now in the previous summer returning repeatedly in the late afternoons so I learned just where to set up my hide but the field is currently occupied by Rooks and jackdaws and it's as if they don't know what to make of each other shorty adults have a habit of hunting in daylight which is bound to attract attention it seems well used to putting up with a couple of pesky Jack doors I'd love to think of its arrival as the beginning of a new phase in our relationship with the countryside we can't go back but there's no reason why we can't move forwards in a different way to where the extraordinary can once again become the ordinary in our fields and meadows

Channel: Stephen de Vere

Views: 87,861

Keywords:

Id: hk0p3Dcy9O0

Length: 72min 44sec (4364 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 24 2023